The idea of having nothing to do these days feels like an alien concept. There’s always something to be done, some feed to read or something that can be used to fill any single moment that you may have. Us millennials remember the time when that wasn’t the case though, those many times where we were left without any source of instant gratification to satisfy our young minds. That feels like the core concept of While Waiting, a kind of exploration of both what used to be and what is today when it comes to mastering the art of being bored. For that I applaud it but unfortunately the execution was lacking just enough to have me put it down somewhat prematurely.
Taking the idea of show don’t tell to its logical extreme While Waiting explores numerous situations where you have a small amount of time where you’re waiting for something to happen. What that is isn’t always clear but the objective is clear: you’ve gotta wait. You can complete all the levels this way, simply enjoying the environments that the developers have created and seeing a life story unfold in front of you. Like all these situations though there’s some way to entertain yourself to pass the time, whether it be messing about when you shouldn’t be or simply making up your own games with anything that’s nearby.
While Waiting has brought back an artstyle I hadn’t seen in quite a long time, that kind of paper doll aesthetic that’s part story book, part flash animation. The last game I remember playing that looked like this was Scribblenauts over 10 years ago and While Waiting has done a great job of making the style their own.
The objectives you’ll be set are kind of hand wavy descriptions of something you can either do or make happen in the scene you’re in. Some of them are easy enough to understand, like do nothing (which you can only get by not doing any of the other objectives) whilst others require a bit of creative thinking to figure out what they mean. Experimenting with everything on screen will usually get you part of the way to figuring out what you need to do, although there was a non-trivial number of them that I simply had zero idea how to accomplish. Whilst the game loudly proclaims at the start that the core of it is well, waiting, realistically you’ll be doing little of that should you try to do any of the objectives. Indeed most of the levels feel rather fast paced as you try to figure out how to do all the objectives.
The one major drawback though is that the controls feel incredibly mushy, to the point of making simple movement around the screen incredibly frustrating. There were many levels which required you walking around and doing so was very frustrating as it was not only slow, but you’d get snagged on inconsistent hitboxes everywhere. Trying to interact with certain items is just as frustrating, to the point where it felt like those early touchscreen games which just didn’t register interactions properly. This was unfortunately what killed it for me as I just didn’t want to keep fighting with the controls anymore.
While Waiting captures one of those parts of life that we don’t give much stock to and does so in a charming, cosy way. Whilst each of the vignettes is lovingly crafted it’s unfortunately let down by the control schemes which feel mushy and imprecise. This is not beyond changing and something I hope gets a lot of attention before this game makes it way to mobile platforms.
Rating: 6.5/10
While Waiting is available on PC and Nintendo Switch right now for $29.50. Total playtime was 53 minutes with 12% of the achievements unlocked.
